Monday, February 11, 2013

Well, sure, but...

So the big hound dog and I drove up to get the well going. (C would have come along, but our old dog, Jeep, is doing poorly and we don't like to leave him alone. I keep telling him to buck up and get better so he can enjoy the life of a country dog. He just looks at me and sighs.)

I'd replaced the busted pipes yesterday and left the heater on in the pump house so the PVC cement would cure. Big moment - flipped the switch and the pump made pumpish watery noises. No leaks. Woohoo! I chugged back up the hill to the house, and no water coming out any of the taps I'd left on. Huh. There must be a valve in the pump house, right? Down the hill, found the valve and opened it and it made water-rushing sounds. Great! Back up the hill, and this time there is water dribbling into a sink here and a sink there. And rushing out of a couple of other places like inside walls and at a toilet valve - gah! no handle on the shut-off! I rush around like crazy and cap this and tighten that and redirect the other and finally decide we're under control, and look! there's working water in the house! Hurrah! I tell the dog how great this is, and she seems to understand. And that's when the sound of a waterfall begins to register.

It wasn't terrible. It was in the old concrete-floored boys' bathroom, gushing out from a mysterious plywood box in a corner. I didn't have a hammer or a crowbar to pry open the box. I accepted defeat, turned off the pump, drained the line, mopped a bit with rags found in the gym. Sigh.

I closed up the pump house and clumped up the hill for the last time, wondering if leaving a small, warm, completely plumbed bungalow in town for this cold, dry (except when it rained!) brick behemoth was such a great idea. Maybe I was too old (54 suddenly seemed very old) for this.

And as I topped the hill and headed for the car, I saw a giant dump truck. A rock-star dump truck, red and black and shiny and huge. Not Elvis's dump truck - that would have been pink and made by cadillac. This one looked like ZZTop's dump truck. And coming out of the schoolhouse, hand extended (there might have been a puff of smoke) was our contractor, C's nephew, over from the coast. I think it's going to be OK.

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We are two girls...

We're two old (we could say "older" as it sounds nicer, but "old" will do) women who have bought a 1936 schoolhouse on eight acres in the country in Eastern Washington state. The place is neglected and funky and we're creaky and broke. It's wonderful.

This is our story as we labor to turn this cool old place into a home and studios.